Considering the Rise of the Super Short Rap Song

The running joke surrounding Lil Pump’s breakout hit, “Gucci Gang,” is that the 17-year-old rapper has to repeat the title 53 times just to reach the two-minute mark. There’s a version that gets faster every time he says “Gucci Gang” and there’s another without any repeating words, both of which are less than 50 seconds. Pump, a SoundCloud darling who climbed the platform’s trending chart with songs like “Molly” (1:39), “Elementary” (1:32), and “D Rose” (2:06), is a model of rap efficiency, cranking out highly monotonous songs that seem to end just as quickly as they’ve started. He’s become hugely popular banking on economy. And he’s not alone.

In recent years, streaming has reintroduced the extra long pop album as a way to game the system, and the tactic has no shortage of disciples in hip-hop (just ask Drake or Migos). But streaming’s playlist economy and social media’s algorithm-fed content conveyor belt have ushered in another effect on the next wave: the short rap song. From “Gucci Gang” to Trippie Redd’s “Love Scars” to 6ix9ine’s “Gummo,” more and more rap hits are under two and half minutes long, ostensibly to placate the shorter attention spans of young listeners online—or as a result of being made by those young listeners.

Late last year, as “Gucci Gang” became the shortest song in 42 years to crack the Top 10 of the Hot 100 chart, Lil Pump and his peers packed their full-lengths with quick hits. Pump’s self-titled debut squeezes 15 tracks into 36 minutes, XXXTentacion’s 17 is just 22 minutes long but somehow 11 songs, and 6ix9ine’s recently released Day69 spans 11 tracks in 27 minutes; all three albums debuted in the Top 5 of the Billboard 200. Looking beyond the chart-toppers, the trend is no less prevalent: There’s Houston gag rapper Ugly God’s The Booty Tape (10 tracks, 23 minutes), baby-faced Alabama riser YBN Nahmir’s Believe in the Glo (10 tracks, 26 minutes), and controversial Cali rapper Lil Xan’s Xanarchy EP (four songs, nine minutes)—all of which have an average song length hovering around 2:35.

Short songs aren’t without function, of course. A short song can be a mark of lyrical concision, or a measure of space and timing. It can slingshot into another, more involved song, or it can serve as a pitstop on an otherwise long record. Some of the greatest rap songs reach brilliance in two minutes or less: Jay-Z’s declaration of intent “Friend or Foe,” DMX’s high-speed escape “ATF,” Black Sheep’s thug parody “U Mean I’m Not,” and Black Thought’s punishing technical exercise on the Roots’ “Panic!!!!!” to name just a few. But many of these newer, abbreviated rap songs use brevity as a crutch, getting into the action quicker while doing way less. They often end up feeling disposable, training the listener to be on to the next one after just a minute or two.

Lil Pump tracks rely heavily on repetition and motion, which would grow monotonous if it ran too long. 6ix9ine’s screamo rap maxes out on wattage, which becomes headache-inducing over time. Xan songs dawdle without much of a conceivable direction, and shorter run times call less attention to this aimlessness. The format leads to stagnation for many rappers, who use the limited space as an excuse not to be ambitious. Still, some of these songs benefit from brief run times, like Tay-K’s “The Race,” which he released while on the run from the police; its rush feeds its urgency. Trippie Redd’s “Love Scars” burns so hot and so quickly, the song makes you yearn for more.

Short songs have really taken hold on the South Florida rap scene, which has dominated SoundCloud over the last year and change. As Pump ascended to Billboard notoriety, the trend continued to spread from counties Palm Beach (Wifisfuneral) to Dade (Smokepurpp) to Broward (Ski Mask the Slump God). The producer at the center of the scene’s eardrum-rattling sound, Ronny J, released his debut album, OMGRONNY, earlier this month, and nine of the 11 tracks clock in under 2:30. And just like his collaborators, some songs are almost sketches, with half verses and makeshift hooks.

While South Florida rappers have embraced this as a community, the short song trend has less to do with region—rappers from D.C., Houston, Alabama, New York, and beyond have taken to it—than it does the digital delivery system. The dominant way that people hear music often dictates how it is made. The era of the multi-screen experience has shifted listening for many from an active, intentional experience to more of a passive, unfocused one. What we’re seeing in this music made by teens, for teens is a creative process shaped by the internet, resulting in different approaches to craft and intent. For some, platforms like SoundCloud and YouTube are viewed as spaces to workshop half-songs (Chicago’s Juice WRLD literally tags some of his short songs as demos). There are no consequences to simply putting it out there, goes the mantra of the internet.

For others, songs are just another form of content for their online brands (shorter songs are easier to fit into a Snap or an Instagram story anyway). It’s unsurprising that Ugly God, the popular Viner who broke as a rapper with 2016’s “Water” (2:20), or Danielle Bregoli (aka Bhad Bhabie), the viral “Cash Me Outside Girl” turned YouTube vlogger who made her hip-hop debut last year with “These Heaux” (2:21) and “Hi Bich” (1:45), would gravitate towards this sort of episodic content model. Bregoli troll and general online menace RiceGum, another pro-YouTuber, has ventured into the rap space with similarly short songs, like the recent Bregoli takedown “Bitcoin” (2:36), the unintentionally parody-ish “God Church” (2:30), and the Jake Paul diss track “It’s Everynight Sis” (2:30). These kids are bringing the language of the web to their raps, and in many cases that seems to mean doing significantly less rapping.

Among more established young stars (who actually want to be rapping), the short song content dump strategy actually runs parallel to the bloated stream-bait album. A system that rewards individual tracks being streamed more as “album equivalent units” is basically asking for shorter tracks, leading to 20 two-minute songs having more value than 10 four-minute songs. It’s why we’re seeing long albums of short songs, like Lil Yachty’s new 17-track LP, Lil Boat 2, nearly half full of tracks under 2:35. Sadly for Yachty, his songs often seem to be short because he’s run out of raps.

It’s likely that this short song trend will continue to spread, as a fresh crop of rappers try to carve out space in these digital landscapes, finding their sounds in real time. We’re already seeing the effects: A flock of “Lil” guys (Wop, Gnar, Skies, Ugly Toes, Toenail), which didn’t start as a web rap signifier but is becoming one; rappers named after “Dragon Ball Z” characters making songs about Tarantino movies; an IG stuntman turned MC. Short songs are becoming a hallmark of a new class of rapper online. They don’t just signify the coming of a new age—they’re a shift in the ways we think about hip-hop.